April 12, 2007
Whenever They Say It's Not About the Money...
The thing about NBC's decision to stop simulcasting the Imus show is that they are trying to portray it as a principled decision, when it's really just about the money.
Today's nytimes has the details:
"MSNBC paid a fee to CBS to simulcast the show, about $4 million a year. It was spending about $500,000 a year to produce the show for television. For that investment, it earned what it labeled a modest profit."
So they were making a "modest profit" on a four and a half million dollar outlay. Proctor and Gamble withdrew a million dollars of advertising from all MSNBC's daytime programming. Not to mention Staples, General Motors, American Express, Sprint Nextel, GlaxoSmithKline, TD Ameritrade, and Ditech.com.
So it really was about the money. NBC News president Steve Capus's pathetic attempt to make it sound like it was an employee-driven decision to preserve NBC's reputation doesn't hold water. NBC News hasn't had a reputation worth preserving for years.
And as for the Imus enablers like Jonathan Alter and Tom Oliphant, they just don't want to give up their best outlet for pimping their books.
Posted by jt at April 12, 2007 09:24 AM